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Home , Karita Mattila

10.9. at 20:00 Helsinki Music Centre

Hannu Lintu conductor karita mattila soprano

Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments

1 (ork. Mottl / Wagner): Wesendonck Lieder WWV 91 I Der Engel II Stehe still! III Im Treibhaus - Studie zu Tristan und Isolde IV Schmerzen V Träume

Paul Hindemith: Konzertmusik op. 50

No interval. The concert will end at about 21:15. Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments

This little work composed by Igor Neoclassicism. The closing chorale, com- Stravinsky (1882–1971) in 1920 has the posed as a tribute to Claude Debussy, who same primitive drive as The Rite of Spring died in 1918, is shrouded in ritual mystery. (1913), or the ballet Les Noces drawing on The winds have congregated: one hums Russian folk customs he wrote through- an ancient tune, another tells a dodgy sto- out the 1910s and on into the 1920s. ry and a third mutters a chant. Together These years marked a transition from they intone age-old litanies that call to his early Russian-oriented period to the mind the sound world of the Symphony of Neoclassicism that became a very per- Psalms (1930). The music seems to exist sonal frame for his expression. Symphonies for itself: the winds form a circle and chat of Wind Instruments straddles these two to one another while we listeners eaves- periods. drop. With its repetitions and wind mo- tifs, Symphonies has a distinctly antique feel yet without the abstract aspect of

2 Richard Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder

The Tristan und Isolde is inevitably causing him to view this death-in- associated with the drama being acted stinct-driven hero in a new light. He put out in the lives of its composer Richard his major Ring project aside, and began Wagner (1813–1883) and poetess Mathilde working flat out on a new kind of opera. Wesendonck, for it is an opera about for- Taking Mathilde on board as his muse was bidden love. The lives of not only Wagner a bit like testing his theories in the field, but also to a great extent of those close- part of a process in which he saw himself ly connected with him were ruled by his as Tristan. One gets the impression that art. His amorous affair with Mathilde for Mathilde, too, it was a sort of role play. Wesendonck was therefore the conse- Work on Tristan got under way in the au- quence of and not the stimulus for Tristan. tumn, but was interrupted in November The wealthy Zurich silk merchant Otto by a one-off little job: a cycle of songs to Wesendonck was one of the generous words by the beloved Mathilde. The Five patrons who took Wagner, then up to Poems for a Female Voice, better known as his eyes in debt, under his wing. And his the Wesendonck Lieder, is one of the few young wife Mathilde was one of the many works by Wagner that is not an opera. (often married) ladies with whom Wagner It is nevertheless organically linked with boosted his ego. Tristan, and simmering in its music is the Wagner had fallen under the spell of chromatic world of the opera, its ecsta- the hero of his opera on acquainting him- sy and torment. “In the Greenhouse” and self with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, “Dreams” were sketches for Tristan; the former ended up in the prelude to Act The speaker in “In the Greenhouse” is sti- III, while the musical material of the lat- fling in her brilliant glasshouse. “Dreams” ter provided the basis for the heady love heaves and surges in a romantic idyll, but scene in Act II. admits that in the end, all is but fantasy. The poems show just how enchant- The original songs are with piano ac- ed Mathilde was with her lover’s , companiment, but they are often per- but they also say something about her in- formed in the orchestration by conduc- ner world. Their messages are more veiled tor-composer Felix Mottl (1856–1911). than the doom-laden philosophy of Tristan. : Konzertmusik op. 50

The music of the highly versatile German Konzertmusik Op. 50 draws its strength composer Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) from contrast and dialogue. The first draws heavily on Bach and Baroque coun- half marries a solid first movement such terpoint. Yet the strident lines of expres- as that of a romantic symphony with a sionism and intoxicating, atonal melodic meditative slow movement. The second beauty are never far away. half is a collision of scherzo and finale: Hindemith wrote a number of works Hindemith inserts a lively string fugue 3 in the nature of orchestral concertos in in his scherzo, with a dreamy trio section which symphonic thinking joins hands that expands into calm, Wagnerian chro- with the Baroque concertante tradition. matic waters. The finale is an ingenious This is particularly audible in, for exam- closing statement that bursts organically ple, the four pieces titled Konzertmusik he out of the earlier material. wrote for a fairly small orchestra in the Konzertmusik was premiered by the late 1920s and early 1930s. Op. 50 of 1930 Boston Symphony Orchestra during its forms the strings and brass into teams 50th anniversary season in 1931. and in this sense is somewhat akin to the polychoral music of the early Baroque and the concerto grosso of the full Baroque. HANNU LINTU karita mattila

Hannu Lintu has been Chief Conductor Karita Mattila is one of the world’s great- of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra est sopranos, praised for the intensity of since autumn 2013. He takes over as Chief her interpretations, her profound ability Conductor of the Finnish National Opera to make her characters come alive, and and Ballet in January 2022. her highly-charged stage presence. When During the 2020/2021 season, Maestro Musical America named her Musician of Lintu will, pandemic permitting, make his the Year in 2005, it described her as “the debut with the New York Philharmonic most electrifying singing actress of our and Tokyo NHK Symphony Orchestra and day, the kind of performer who renews an make return appearances with the London aging art form and drives the public into Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands frenzies.” Radio Philharmonic, and the Symphony Since winning the BBC Singer of the Orchestras of Baltimore, Detroit and World title in Cardiff in 1983, Karita Chicago. Recent highlights have includ- Mattila has sung on the world’s lead- ed debuts with the Montreal and Chicago ing opera stages (Covent Garden, the Symphony Orchestras and the Hungarian New York Metropolitan, the Vienna State National Philharmonic, and concerts with Opera, Munich, Paris, etc.) and as the so- 4 the Boston and St. Louis Symphonies, the loist with top orchestras under such cel- New Japan Philharmonic, the Singapore ebrated conductors as Claudio Abbado, Symphony and the NDR Elbphilharmonie. Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Hannu Lintu first studied the cello and Haitink and Esa-Pekka Salonen. She also piano at the , and lat- gives regular Lieder recitals. er orchestral conducting in the class of In the early years of her career, Karita Jorma Panula. He participated in master- Mattila sang many of the Mozart roles. classes with Myung-Whun Chung at the Later, her core repertoire has comprised L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, leads in operas by Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Italy, and took first prize at the Nordic Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Janáček, and she Conducting Competition in Bergen in is constantly adding new roles. 1994. He has recorded on the , BIS, Karita Mattila’s extensive discogra- Hyperion and other labels. phy (on the Philips, EMI, Sony, and Ondine labels) encom- passes both complete opera recordings (for which she has received two Grammy awards), discs of arias, solo songs, and so- los in concert repertoire. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra The FRSO has recorded works (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish by Mahler, Bartók, Sibelius, Hakola, Broadcasting Company (Yle). Its mission Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, is to produce and promote Finnish musical Kokkonen and others. It has twice won culture and its Chief Conductor as of au- a Gramophone Award: for its disc of tumn 2013 has been Hannu Lintu. Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto in 2006 The Radio Orchestra of ten players and of Bartók Violin Concertos in 2018. founded in 1927 grew to symphony or- Other distinctions have included BBC chestra proportions in the 1960s. Its Chief Music Magazine, Académie Charles Cros Conductors have been Toivo Haapanen, and MIDEM Classical awards. Its disc of Nils-Eric Fougstedt, , tone poems and songs by Sibelius won Okko Kamu, Leif Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka an International Classical Music Award Saraste and Sakari Oramo, and taking (ICMA) in 2018, and it has been the re- over from Hannu Lintu in 2021 will be cipient of a Finnish EMMA award in 2016 Nicholas Collon. and 2019. In addition to the great Classical- The FRSO regularly tours to all parts of Romantic masterpieces, the latest con- the world. During the 2020/2021 season 5 temporary music is a major item in the its schedule will include a tour to Spain un- repertoire of the FRSO, which each year der Hannu Lintu. premieres a number of Yle commissions. The FRSO concerts are broadcast live Another of the orchestra’s tasks is to re- on the Yle Areena and Radio 1 channels cord all Finnish orchestral music for the and are recorded and shown later on Yle Yle archive. Teema and TV 1.